CBC's new $46M building not big enough for everyone

The new, $46.5 million CBC Broadcast Centre—touted as a state-of the art building that would consolidate all CBC Ottawa operations—is too small to fit all its employees. The public broadcaster has been forced to rent space in a separate building across town to hold its Shared Services Office (SSO), made up of financial, information-technology and administrative employees serving the entire Crown corporation, according to CBC documents obtained by the Citizen. The employees were to have occupied the new building's fourth floor.(continued on page A2)

CBC: A 'war' between journalists, real-estate gurus

But the SSO had to be housed in a separate space because the fourth floor of the new downtown building, on Queen Street, isn't big enough to hold all the employees, the documents say. The rented space, at 1525 Carling Ave., is about 20,500 square feet.

The fourth-floor space in the new building will now be subleased by the CBC to the department of Public Works. (The new, 11-storey building is owned by Morguard Investments, a Toronto-based development company. The CBC leased the first four floors, while Public Works leased the rest of the building for House of Commons employees.)

Harold Redekopp, vice-president of English television, indicated the fourth floor “could be used for training,” a decision to be “revisited” in two or three years, the documents say.

The decision to lease the space to Public Works is the “ultimate slap in the face,” said Lise Lareau, national president of the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), the union representing about 554 Ottawa-based CBC journalists, technicians, editorial and administrative staff.

“It proved to me that everything that we've been saying about what people need to do their work has just not been listened to,” Ms. Lareau said.

CBC spokesman Jason MacDonald said the corporation “looked at” the new building as a possible home for the 85-employee SSO, but it was more “efficient” and made the “best business sense” to put the office on Carling.

The SSO is “not a part of the Ottawa project, but it is an interesting project in its own right,” he said. The “Ottawa project” is the new broadcast centre, at 181 Queen St., and its focus is CBC's production services, Mr. MacDonald said.

The Carling Avenue lease terms are “not public information,” he said. The CBC is one of many Crown corporations exempt from the Access to Information Act.

As of late last year, Denis Doucet, the project's former general manager of production and resources, reported the project “remains on budget, although very tight,” the documents say, later adding that the corporation “will have to make arrangements for paying rent to maintain existing facilities.”

But Dany Harrison, Mr. Doucet's successor, said in an interview that “there is no cost override. We're still contained within the budget.”

Budget contingency plans were not disclosed.

The fight over space has evolved into a “war between the real-estate division and journalism craft interests,” Ms. Lareau said, noting that the division has a separate communications director.

The union's workplace diagnostician identified several problems with the newsroom, including crowding, privacy issues, lighting and ceiling clearances as low as seven feet three inches, too low for appropriate overhead lighting.

As of last fall, 213 journalists were to move into the building's 35,450-square-foot, on-camera, bilingual newsroom, but the CBC has reduced that plan to 180 journalists. CBC insiders say it was done to accommodate camera positions.

While Ms. Lareau agrees with the cost benefits to being in one building and benefits to journalists to being in one newsroom, she said political and integration optics for “the Ottawa bureaucracy” have eclipsed all other interests.

“I've seen real estate officials at the CBC pretty well laughing when I raise these kinds of issues,” Ms. Lareau said of journalists' working conditions in the building.

Rob Renaud, the CBC's regional director for Ottawa, English services, spoke about the integrated newsroom's benefits for journalists.

“The goal of news integration is to produce the highest quality journalism that we can,” said Mr. Renaud, a member of the five-person management committee overseeing the Ottawa project. “I've been committed to that goal, and I'm absolutely convinced that is what we're trying to achieve here.”

Although journalists have yet to move into the building, most head-office staff, about 187 employees, relocated as of March 8.

Last September, phased moves of television and radio production were planned to begin in May 2004. But in November, the documents reveal, technical facilities were still not ready to install equipment, leaving moves delayed till “late fall 2004.”

The server technology linking radio and TV had yet to be chosen, but the date to go live to air “for all broadcasting” from the new building was September 2004.

Mr. Harrison told the Citizen that server technology for Ottawa has finally been chosen, but acquisition negotiations continue. He added that technical facilities are now ready.

Other CBC documents show that the latest timetable has those phased moves begin in July, with CBOT moving in early September and CBOFT in November. Currently the final move – English National Television News – is scheduled for January 14 to 17.

Mr. MacDonald confirmed that the TV server will not be online when CBOT moves. This should not affect what viewers see on CBC TV, but for CBOT journalists it means working with analogue technology in a workplace designed for desktop digital editing.

Mr. MacDonald said that the server should be online by November.

CBC is seeking an additional server technology that will allow content sharing across the country, the documents say.

Mr. MacDonald said that the CBC has designated a 300-square foot area on the second floor as “an informal meeting space for employees.”

Published in The Ottawa Citizen, Saturday April 17, 2004

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